Blogs

Build Your Room Design on the Rug There are a number of great reasons why it makes sense to build your room design on and around the rug.

What You Need to Know about Antique Rugs

Although the availability of beautiful, brand new rugs in unprecedented sizes and colors is enormous, some people have a passion for antique rugs.

What is an antique rug? 

Simple. The rug must be over 100 years old. Anything younger than 100 years, but not new is called "vintage."

Antique serapi, Persia ca 1870. Medallion detail. Size 8'6" x 12'7"

Color Returns - Gloriously We recently wrote about the possible return of color. The International rug experts at Domotex certainly embraced color in awarding the top prizes for new design to rugs with lots of color. A sign of things to come? Who knows. Trends are hard to spot until they are indeed trends.

Beni Ourain Rugs

Beni Ourain refers to rugs woven by a tribal group of the  Berber peoples. They live nomadicly in the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, mainly Morocco.

 

The wool of these rugs is washed, but not dyed. It's hand-combed, hand-carded and loosely spun, creating a fluffy fibrous yarn.

 

The weavers then hand knot the rug and trim to a high pile that reminds us of mid-century shag.

 

The Academy Awards of Rug Design

Every year the Domotex trade show brings rug professionals to Hanover, Germany from all over the world.

 

Domotex chooses a panel of shelter professionals and these pick their favorite rugs from new designs from around the world. You might say it's the Academy Awards of rug design.

 

A Rug Showing - Two Different Looks

Rugs have a remarkable effect on a room. We see it everyday when we place rugs in spaces for designers to approve (or not).

Borrowing a fine setting from our friends at Market Place Interiors, we take a look at a couple of effects. Feel free to approve (or not).

Here is the grouping. It's attractive on its own, full of lots of eye-appealing furnishings. Let's lay out a couple of rugs and see how things change.

 

Every Rug Has a Dark Side and a Light Side

All hand-knotted rugs have a dark side and a light side.  Sometimes it's so subtle it's hard to see. Other times it's hard not to see.

 

An element that really separates light from dark is banana silk.

 

The fibers from the banana plant have been used in yarn for centuries, especially in Japan and Nepal, have become known as banana silk.


The Light Side

 

Himalayan Influence in Contemporary Rug Design In the 1970s American rug importers began to take note of the Himilayan rug tradition centered in Nepal. It featured very simple designs, skilled weavers and fabulous wool. American rug designers saw the situation as a blank canvas and contemporary rug design was born.

Patterns - Visual Harmony

People have created decorative patterns since time began. Perhaps a visual rendering of a pattern rhythms brings harmony to the mind like music does with sound.

 

There has been a growing trend in all-over patterns in hand-knotted rugs. 

 

All-over patterns have as few as two colors and repeat the same pattern over and over again. Perhaps our brains enjoy some solace in that and rest from the constant chore of creating patterns from reality.

 

Silver Screen Gray From the 1920s into the 1950s movies were graced with the perhaps the best black and white cinematographers that the world will ever know. They mastered every mood, every opportunity for highlighting, for low lighting, for balancing light and dark values, for conveying every emotion.